8

Introduction
CHRISTOF THOENES
Why do architects write? And what do they write about?
What is a treatise on architecture and what is architectural
theory? The answers to these questions would fill a library.
Our little group categorizes itself by nation (language) and
period. An introduction like this could order its various s e c ~
, .
tions by content and structure or it could "Categorize" the in:"'
dividual titles. But that would achieve little except regroup'
the material under consideration. We are going to take a dif-
ferent route '-- we will investigate the origins of the architec-
tural treatise, trying to find out something about the motiva-
tions of the authors and why architects have been reaching
for their pens for more than 500 years.
ARCHITECTURE AND LITERATURE
Leon Battista Alberti, the father of the modern architectural
treatise; did not only write about the construction of build-
ings. His first theoretical essay on art was called Della Pittura
and was about painting. A later work entitled De statua is
dedicated to sculpture. From the very beginning of the
RenaisSance, the production of art always went hand in hand
with theoretical literature. The main reason for this was to
set the artist apart from the craftsman and make him into an
intellectual, thus enabling him to participate in the discus-
sions of scholars, poets and literati. However, iri the case of
the architect this was only a partial truth. This type of art is
more concerned with planning and managing than with
craftsmanship and it has little to do with physical work.
That is why members ofthe nobility, even ruling sovereigns,
could practise architecture. It did not have to be learnt "the
hard way," which is what architecture and literature have in
common. Alberti, a scholar and man of books with no train-
ing in craftsmanship, would not have been able to become a
good sculptor or painter when he became interested in art
at the age of 30. However, he became one of the greatest ar-
chitects of his time. In contrast to the number of architects
who were writing (I will mention non-writing architects
later), the number of visual artists who tried their hand at lit-
erature was quite small. The only writer/artists whose liter-
ary achievements have far outweighed their practical accom-
plishments have been architects, such as Vitruvius in ancient
times and Sebastiano Serlio or Paul Decker in modern times.
There are, however, some successful, indeed outstanding,
writer/architects (for example, Vignola and Palladio) whose
status in the history of architecture is due as much to their
building accomplishments as to their writing.
Architects do not construct their buildings themselves.
In order to realize their ideas, they need construction work-
ers as well as client!>. The latter supply the funds and in
documents and inscriptions are usually named as the actual
creators of the work in question. The architect must remain
in constant communication with these partners. His design
must be interpreted; decisions requiring financial participa-
tion must be taken wisely and there are constant objections
to be discussed. The project develops as a dialogue. In addi-
tion to the sponsor, the general public also plays a role. The
building will be a part of their world and they need to under-
stand what the architect has created and why he has chosen
one particular design and not another. In addition, the archi-
tect must have the ability to articulate relevant facts in a way
that can be understood by non-professionals. Paintings and
sculptures speak for themselves; they are a reference to the
content they represent. This is not true of architectural
works. A column is a column is a column: it says nothing
about why it is there, what its function is as a building ele-
Thoenes, Christof. [2003] Introduction. In Bernd Evers, Christof
Thoenes, et.al. Architectural Theory Koln: Taschen: 8-19.
ment or what it could possibly That is why all archi-
tects, from Vitruvius and his unknown precursors, right up
to Frank Lloyd Wright and Daniel Libeskind, were not only
builders, but also writers. But the word was not in the begin-
ning. It ras always been buildings (the choir of the cathedral
. ofSL Dedf$f-Btunnellschi's Old Sactisty, Gropius' Fac
guswerk)aiid not written mapifestos in which new architec-
tural ideas first came to light. Nevertheless, writing does
make it possible to,unclerstand them.

treatises on architecture Will be confronted
with a name which nearly all modem architectural writers
cite have at the back of their minds: Vitruvius. Mter all,
he is tlie author of the only surviving ancient textbook on
the suBject. In the light of what we know today about the an-
cient building methods, Vitruvius' Ten Volumes On Architec-
ture (De architectura libri decem) to play a
somewhat marginal role. Nevertheless, it had a magical in-
fluence on the Renaissance. On the oneltand, this was due
to the deep respect a culture deeply imbued with humanism
had for books as such, and indeed any kind of authentic
written material. On the other, it was due to the fact that
Vitruvius' work was a textbook, a work of instruction. This
meant that it was possible not only to learn from it what was
good and proper architecture, but also, and above all, that
the Ancients thought that their architecture was theoretically
"teachable" ... It was felt that could and should
write. Their art form needed to be made available in written
form. This is the message which the Renaissance wanted to
hear.
Unknown artist, 2nd half of 15th century
Portrait of Leon BaHista Alberti
9
to THOENES
The Italian humanists did not discoverVitruvius. New
manuscripts were admittedly found, but for the most part
the texts they contained were familiar and had been repeat-
edly copied and studied during the Middle Ages. In one case,
they were even illustrated, albeit primitively (it should be
said that this was the world of monasteries and scriptoria,
not the architect's workshop). Text (litterae) was one thing,
'construction (ars meccanica) was another. It was precisely
this demarcation that was breached by the Renaissance hu-
manists. The innovations consisted in crossing over from the
study of texts to the study of things, understanding Vitruvius
while bringing that knowledge into line with known ancient
ruins, forming a picture of the architecture of Classical An-
tiquity and putting it into practice. The fact that this project
succeeded must be considered one of the great intellectual
accomplishments of the Early Modern period. Initially, the
upshot was criticism of Vitruvius. Alberti was the first and
for a long time the only person who really understood him.
He neither edited, nor translated, nor commented on the
ancient writings, indeed only seldom did he quote them.
Instead, he wrote his own "-ten books" which intended
as a replacement for Vitruvius, making his teachings, as
well as those of other Classical authors, applicable to the
present.
However, things did not stop there. Dntil Serlio's Re
gole generali (1537) appeared, the most important books on
architecture were not treatises, but rather various editions
and tianslations of Vitruvius. Annotatededitions like those
of Cesariano, Philandrier and Barbarotook on the character
of treatises. At this point, a paradox in humanistic culture
became evident. Because of criticism of the medieval ver-
sions of the ancient texts, which had distorted over
, time, the original sources (ad/mites) were now being con-
sulted. The danger lay in becoming the ancient
ideas, which had been historically surp'assed. Thus much
architectural theory was invested in the ultimately insol-
vable problem of interpreting the ancient and per se contra-
dictory texts as contemporary "architectural guidelines."
The Jesuit priest, Antonio Possevino (Bibliotheca selecta,
Rome, 1593) was a critical voice. He asserted that the writ-
ings of Classical Antiquity could no longer serve as a direct
source of inspiration. They' had to be understood in their
historical perspective and, in the way prescribed by Alberti,
be adapted to the needs of the present. He was primarily
opposed by protestant authors who were in favour of a literal
understanding of Vitruvius' texts. It was advances in the sci-
ence of archaeology which re-inserted Vitruvius into his his-
torical context and liberated architectural thought from its
Vitruvian straitjacket.
THE RENAISSANCE
A glance at the architectural map of Europe in the 15th cen-
tury that there were two systems competing with each
other. One was Gothic, which had developed local and na-
tional variations over the centuries and dominated the conti-
nent. The other was based on Classical Antiquity and was
called "Renaissance." It began in Tuscany and spread
throughout the Italian peninsula in the course of the century.
It then went on to conquer those regions on the far side of
the Alps. This process went hand-in-hand with the rise and
expansion of the architectural treatise. Was this a coinci-
dence? And if not, how are these two events related?
The answer is obvious: the new style of building re-
quired a new way of disseminating knowledge. Gothic was
rooted in the building practices of its time when the master
craftsmen's lodges or the construction sites themselves
served at the same time as places of training. There, in sights
ranging from construction work to how to shape particular
decorative details were passed down by word of mouth from
one generation to the next. In this way, the system was de- ,
velopedin an organic fashion. We can conceive of this as a
kind of growth process in which the phases (early, high and
late Gothic) follow one another as if by some natural law. By
contrast, the idea of drawing once more on Classical Antiqui-
ty arose in the minds of artists who, like Brunelleschi, were
not trained architects. There were also scholars who read the
ancient authors and used this as a vantage point from which
to criticize the modern style. In other words, it was an idea
which did not arise from actual everyday construction prac-
tices but rather in spite of them. It required defining, argu-
mentation, language and finally the written word.
Tl).is was more than a change of medium. For the Re-
naissance architect, familiarity with the written word became
an indispensable part of his professional activities. It was a
simple matter for a scholar like Alberti to become an archi-
tect; in fact, now an "illiterate" such as Francesco di Giorgio
(who had been educated as a painter, sculptor, architect and
enginee,r) also needed to acquaint himself with Vitruvius. As
he said himself, it was like "learning to speak all over again"
("retrovare quasi come di novo la forza di parlare"). This led
him to produce his own literary works; not (or not only) in
order to improve his status at court, but because intimacy
with words was now the kernel of his work. By writing, he
tried to come to an understanding of what he did as an archi-
tect. Developing the new style itself and devising a new for-
mal canon "all'antica" both therefore took place on the level
of linguistic reflexion.
The architect's contemporaries regarded his work as
analogous to that of a philologist or textual critic. Like a text,
one had to study ancient ruins, ordering their fragments, and
reconstructing wha(had been lost to time so that in spite of
later additions and alterations, the original coUld still be.rec-
ognized. The history of language to become the model
for understanding styles of architecture. The decline of ar-
chitecture in the Middle Ages corresponded to the decay of
classical Latin - a process which the humanists tried to re-
verse. This is why Filarete praised Brunelleschi for restoring
Italian architecture to the level it.enjoyed at the time of Ci-
cero and Virgil. Serlio compared the buildings of the High
Renaissance in Rome with the language of Caesar and Ci-
cero. Aretino explained the classical orders of columns with
references to the;qassicallanguages. criteria for good
style became the mastery of grammatical rules. Beauty was
"right" and ugliness was "wrong." .
It was hoped that a system for categorizing the new
doctrine would be found in Vitru1!i.us. With the help of the
old master's texts, the ancient constructions were "read." But
because of this, a peculiar paradox The principle sec-
tions describing classical forms lireto be found in the books
III and IV of Vitruvius, which to temple con-
.struction. His riIies are fOJ::self-supportldg, three-dimen-
sional structures. Butdurlng Vitruvjus' own lifetime, the
Romans 4ad already begun to use structural members in
for <k@ratlon. The 10ad-beaJing
elements of a tabularium or a theatre were columns, walls
and vaults. The load-bearing role of pilasters and their
entablatiIres was pure fiction. these were the very
mon'uments which the architects of the Renaissance were
able to study and from which architecture's "wall
with an order of columns"("Siiulenornungswand") (Hans
Sedlmayer) developed. At this point, Vitruvius' building in-
structions became mere rules for the correct proportioning
of elevations, and the theorists developed increasingly subtle
regulations. By contrast, the dimensions of the load-bearing
sections of a building remained a question of practical expe-
rience, from which, in the 18th century, structural engineer-
ing on a scientific basis developed, while academic architec-
tural theory remained fixed on the aesthetics of proportions.
The schism between structure and decoration had its
roots in Italy during the Middle Ages. However, during the
Enlightenment it became the subject of critical treatises. This
went hand in hand with attacks on the class society of the
Ancien Regime, a connection we shall deal with later. The
preferred arguments were of a moralistic/rationalistic na-
ture: the feigned load-bearing properties of the orders were
exposed as deceitful and hypocritical while the Greek temple
was held up as an ideal vis-a.-vis the Renaissance wall with
its merely decorative orders. Columns,.the critics said;
should stand alone and actually perform the function their
form implies - idleness is the root of all evil. Of course, even
the Greek support system contains a seed of untruthfulness.
Claude Perrnult (1613-1688)
Allegory of architecture
INTRODUCTION 11
The end-paper is an allegorical portrayal of how France - with a tri-
umphal arch for Louis XIV and the eastern of the Louvre .
by Pen-ault! - continues the Classical tradition in the glory of its new'
archi tecture.
In: Les dix livres d'arcbitecture de Vitruve, corrigez et traduits nou-
vell.ement en Fran<;ois, Paris, 1684
Ill. p. 9
Unknown artist, 2nd half of 15th century
Portrait of Leon Batlista Alberti
The drawing was reported by Cecil Grayson in 1954. It is on the title
page of a manuscript of Alberti's treatise TranquiUita dell'Animo.
Contemporary sources relate that Alberti liked to make portrait
sketches of himself and his friends.
Rome, Bibliotheca Nazionale, Fondo Vittorio Emanuele, cod. 738
12 THO E N E S
Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709)
AUegory of architecture
The arts are instrumental in making Emperor Leopold I famous.
In: Perspectiva et architectorum, Rome, 1693
Columns and entablatures are not "natural" to construction
in stone. They developed from wooden structures with quite
different sta.tics. In this regard, even before 1730, the Francis-
can friar Carlo Lodoli criticized stone orders of columns as a
mistake, indeed a crime ("difetto/delitto"). With this, the
consensus that had held European architectural theory to-
gether since the days of Alberti was dissolved: namely, the
commitment to Classical Antiquity.One finds French treatis-
es as early as the beginning of the 18th century championing
the search for structurally "honest" forms. These were found
in Gothic cathedrals, which are the best example of anti-Re- .
naissanc'e monuments. Here are also the roots of neo-Gothic
- a style whose progressive nucleus should not be lost sight
of simply because it was marred on occasion by this or that
Romantic/reactionary episode. Mer all, its goal was the 'abo-
lition of the contradiction between structure and decoration.
It was in the spirit of technical rationality that Georg Gottlob
Ungewitter reviewed the entire world of forms in ecclesiasti-
cal architecture from the construction of arches to details of
. tracery in his Lehrbuch der gothischen Konstruktionen (Text-
Constructions).written between1859 and 1864.
Viollet-Ie'-Duc declared that it was impossibie to reconcile
the use of Greeo-Roman forms with the principles oia mod-
;;rnsocfety. Nevertheless; the arehitecture.otlhe .,
defs of columns found a supporter in Jakob Burckhardt. His
book. Geschichte der Renaissance in [talien (The History of the
Renaissance in Italy), which appeared in 1868, provides, in
reality, a systematic account of Italian Renaissance architec-
ture. Burckhardt himself firinly believed in the continued
validity of this approach. In 1828. Heinrich Htibsch posed
the question In welch.em Style sollen wir bauen? (What style
shoukl we build in?), a question that could no longer be an-
swered at the theoretical level.
CULTURE OF THE COURT
AND CULTURE OF THE CITY
For many years now, people have argued about the intended
readership of the architectural treatises. For the architects?
Their clients? Interested lay persons? Each answer is correct,
or rather, the correct answer lies in a combination of all
these aspects. Indeed, the social function of the treatise was
that it established a new level of communication between the
. architect, the client and the general public. The place where
this communication took place was the princely court - what
Martin Warnke has called "society's transhipment centre,"
the meeting place for the wishes and interests of the ruler,
the nobility and the bourgeois/urban middle class (from
which artists and humanists usually originated). Bearing this
in mind, it is no coincidence that the first three major treatis-
es on the architeCture of the early Renaissance period arose
at courts in Italy. AIberti, who had resided in Rome since
1443, dedicated his book to Pope Nicholas V, with whom he
had been friends since his student days. The two different
manuscripts of Filarete's treatise are dedicated to the Mi-
lanese Duke Francesco Sforza and to Piero de' Medici re-
spectively. Francesco di Giorgio's treatises were penned at
the courts of Urbino and Naples.
As authors of treatises, the architects tried to assimi-
late the ruling literary-antiquarian cultural standards of the
.court. At the same time, princes and noblemen were not only
"-expected to be interested in architectural problems but also
to be among the cognoscenti in this field. Architects and no-
blemen were dependent on each other. The latter possessed
the necessary funds, while the architect had the knowledge
to convert those financial means into a symbol of prestige.
The architect's preferred strategy was therefor.e. to appeal to
the sovereign's thirst for fame. The rulers of Antiquity were
remembered solely by dint of the siZe and magnificence of
their buildings. The sovereign could do nothing better than
invest,his money in monumental architecture. Filarete found
the most striking of metaphors for the "interaction" betw'een .
the client and the architect. He called the patron (with
ousJlaUery). the father, of the projecLaild the.architect, who
as it were carries the child gives 'birth, the mother. The
necessity of this interaction is often emphasized today. As
Frank Gemy says: "Clients are important. They are the fuel,
the energy, which make it possible for me to do my work."
'The literary form of architectural theory, namely the
treatise, is indebted to the traditions of the Renaissance
court. But the authors of the early treatises came from bour-
geois cities. Alberti and Filarete were natives of Florence and
Francisco di Giorgio was from Siena. This fact is not unim-
portant if we are to properly understand the content of the
treatises. There was a strong tradition of deliberation on
questions of art and architecture'in Florence. When Alberti,
who grew up in exile, entered his home city in 1430, he
found a climate of intense intellectual debate. In 1413, it was
reported that Niccolo Niccoli, humanist and friend of
Brun'elleschi, believed that the "rules for construction" could
be derived from the ruins of Classical Antiquity ("de archi-
tectura rationes explicare credatur"). The administration of
the town of Siena made the teaching of-architecture a public
responsibility. A contract with Baldassare Peruzzl was drawn
up which required him "to teach his art to anyone who so
desired." In a handwritten draft treatise, Peruzzi made it his
intention to throw all scholarly ballast overboard in order to
write in a simple manner which be understood by
everyone. This broke open the restricted circle of court read-
ers in order to appeal to bourgeois circles. The common man
("ogni mediocre") should be able to understand his writing,
I N T R 0. 0 U C T I 0. N 13
wrote Peruzzi's student and friend, Sebastiano Serlio. He
went from Rome to Venice in order to petition the Senate for
copyright protection for a series of copperplate engravings
which were meant to introduce the new Roman style of ar-
chitecture to the city. This project was enthusiastically sup-
ported by Pietro Aretino. Serlio's hefty treatise on architec-
ture adheres to a comprehensive didactic programme. The
intended readers are not only architects, but also "the many
noblemen who dabble in the art and have no less an under-
standing of it than do the best masters" ("molti Gentil'homi-
ni de la nobilita, che pur non si delettano, ma sanno de quel-
l'artequanto i migliori maestri"). With his treatise, Regola
delli cinque ordini d'architettura, Vignola attempted to pro-
duce a work exclusively for specialists. To his surprise, how-
ever, this project (which mostly consisted of large illustra-
tions) found favour with numerous "signori," who wanted an
easy way to familiarize themselves with the now fashionable
"ordini."
Although it seems that in the course of time, interest in
these treatises grew to inchlde a wider class of people and
that a certain populari.zation of the processes of communka-
tion gradually emerged, the circle of readers and users of
treatises remained a mix of architects,aristocratic dilet-.
tantes, alongwithCQurta,Igl.city ,Until
18th century, the political/economic framework ofthe es-
tates of society remained intact. No author of a treatise
would have omitted to dedicate his work to the ruler or to a
personality closely allied with the latter. While he could not
expect such a patron to necessarily have sympathy for his
work, he could at least hope for personal support and
vancement.
BOOKS
Architectural treatises are books through which the architect
took the limelight. During the Middle Ages, architectural
doctrine remained encrypted, was considered a "secret"
which was passed down in ever smaller degrees in the mas-
ter builders' lodges. By contrast, the effects of a treatise were
broad and reached readers of all classes both within and out-
side the building profession. Everything that Alberti found
out regarding construction, proportion, and design in Classi-
cal Antiquity he then put to paper in his treatises, ready for
all to read.
Obviously, the best weapon in the battle of "making
public" the well-guarded knowledge of the hierarchies of
feudal societies was the printed book. The printing press was
invented at the same time as the architectural treatise. Nev-
ertheless, there is no causal relationship between them. The
"courtly" treatises of the 15th century were penned as manu-
14 THO ENES
scripts. Copies were circulated but their exposure was limit-
ed to a privileged circle of readers. It was only in 1485 - 13
years after the Alberti's death - that a German printer pub-
lished De re aedificatoria in Florence. This was a step which
the author surely would have approved of, but did not antici-
pate: his text contains a request that the scribes write num-
bers in words in order to avoid mistakes.
Among his contemporaries there was plenty of contro-
versy about Gutenberg's achievements. However, there is no
disagreement about one 0" his acComplishments - he re-
duced the cost of producing books. Printed texts mayor may
not have read or more attrac-
tive than manuscripts; but they 'were certainly less expensive
to obtain. "And that is why," wrote Nicolaus Perotus in about
1470; "I hope that in a short time there will be such a wealth
of books, that even the poor and the destitute will not have
to go without." Knowledge had become a consumer good
like any other and could now circulate freely - this was un-
derstood as the core of the Gutenberg revolution.
This also had an effect on the profession of the archi-
tect:As an:aullior who addressed an anonymous 'public, he
was now able to expedence liberatibn of the market-
place, before him. His literary work
, :_ ............ ' , ,- , . I't
Was" his-an-d'liisiUone. Independent of his -patron -as well
as of'ihepractical 'problems of decuting his architectural
he was able to a,ir ideas for discussion and (in the
illustrated treatises of the 16th century) present his own
ceuvre. Likewise, the rank of the architect within the cultural
hierarchy charged. His work became a matter of public in-
terest; ilot only for economic and technical reasons, but also
with respect to the formal and artistic properties of the de-
sign. filhis books, Serlio discusses the "maniere" of archi-
tecture, its styles of construction, its and types, but not
its material substance. Those who may not
be able to build themselves, but they are able to discuss ar-
chitetture and to determine what does what does not
follow the rules, what is right or wrong, good or bad. Archi-
tecture thus became a part of general of education
and of convention. Responsibility for n:aking judgements
also changed from those who are matetially involved (name- ,
ly the client and the architect), to society in general; specifi-
cally,the society of readers - we might say the information
society.
The alliance with printers led to the emancipation
of the architect. He emerged as an independent artist who
"made a name for himself' as an author. However, this
process did not occur smoothly. Dependence on a prince
with all its pitfalls (and such dependence persisted, indeed
increased, as local rulers grew more powerful in the 16th
century), was how exacerbated at times by dependence on
publishers, book dealers or monetary backers. As we know,
these matters cast a shadow over the life of Gutenberg and
they dogged even such prolific writers as Serlio until the very
end of his difficult life. Serlio's books were published suc-
cessively in Venice, Paris, Lyons and Frankfurt. Translations
appeared during his lifetime (but without his authorization)
first in Antwerp and Toledo, and later in Amsterdam, Basle,
London, and elsewhere. The "desire for profit on the part of
the publisher" ("ingordigia degli stampatori") ruined many a
valuable work, Vasari complained. Architects like Labacco
and Vignola invested their own funds, publishing and bring-
ing their books to market themselves. Not even this made
them rich, however. The marketingsuccessofcYignola's Re-
gola delli cinque ordini was due mostly to pirated editions.
There was no effective protection against such bootlegging
for a long time.
ILLUSTRATIONS IN BOOKS
Those who think of architectural treatises only in connection
, with printed books mustepJl;l.rge their frame of reference to
include printed illustrations. In fact, it seems that illustra-
tions are a quintessential part of every treatise on
Theinajor at,the beginning oL!!te .. , " .
printing era. Alberti oonsciously omitted illustrations, relying
entirely on his Latin and his literary skills. Vitruvius' archi-
, tectural treatise is also an example without illustrations, al-
though certain sections of the text suggest that there proba-
bly were pictures originally. Many architects during the
Renaissance were worried by this absence. It gave reason
for suspicions like those raised by Antonio de Sangallo,
who suggested.that Vitruvius gave the Augustus Caesar his
manuscript but kept the drawings himself, so that "architetti
ignoranti" in the Imperial court could not steal his secrets.
The real reason was, of course, that the original manuscript
had long since disappeared and that through the repeated
process of copying, the illustrations had become more and
more distorted, and eventually lost. Alberti must have been
aware of this dilemma. Perhaps he knew of passages in Pliny
the Elder and Galen which argue for precisely this
against illustrations in texts on the natural sciences, Filarete
and Francesco di Giorgio included drawings in the manu-
scripts of their treatises, but their quality is doubtful enough
to raise questions of authenticity. In any case, the first print-
ing of Alberti's treatise was without illustrations.
The technology for printing illustrations predated that
of printing with movable type. Paper prints from wood-
blocks and metal plates had been in use since the beginning
of the 15th century for the production of religious pictures,
leaflets, playing cards and similar mass products. Soon after-
wards, prints became an independent artistic category along-
INTRODUCTION 15
side painting. The high-pressure printing technique used for placed by more modern means of reproduction such as lith-
woodcuts was easily combined with letterpress. This was the ography, steel engraving and ,collotype.
way the first illustrated books were printed. These included Even though this is on occasion forgotten, printing pic-
such jewels as Hypnerotomachia Poiyphili, which Aldus tures is almost as important as printing books in the process
Manutius published in Venice in 1499. In 1511, Fra Giocon- of civilization. It seems to us that the appearance of repro-
do's edition of Vitruvius appeared.., cumfzguris. AB the name duced prints was the first step in the development of the vi-
implies, 140 (artistically unimportant) woodcuts are dis- sual culture which nowadays encompasses ever increasing
persed throughout the text. The point was to make Vitruvius , areas of life. In the closing days of the Middle Ages, the
comprehensible and easy to read (ut iam legi et intelligi pos- world was becoming more complex and pictures quickly
sit). Cesare Cesariano's richly illustrated translation of Vitru - gained importance as a source of information as well as a
vius followed ten years later. This was then exploited by Du- non-verbal means of communication. Woodcuts, copperplate
rantino 'and Caporali and in Germany by Walther Hermann, _,_, ,engravings and illustrated books conveyed
Ryff. The first modern treatise on architecture to become the world and the surroundings in which people lived. Those
truly popularthrough a book market was that of Sebastiano who purchased books increased their own horizons without
Serlio. In this publication, the relationship between word leaving their home town. Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik
and illustration is reversed. Serlio's work contains illustra- (Chronicle of the World), which was printed in Nuremberg in
tions with explanatory texts and it is precisely this that led to 1493, can be considered a milestone in this development.
its success. The informative reach 6fprinted books first Based on models by Nuremberg painters, it contains partly
gathered momentum just as the verbalization of architectur- realistic, partly fantastic woodcuts portraying the cities of the
al doctrine surpassed its zenith and the picture had taken its known world (as far away as the Holy Land). Published in
place alongside the written word, In 155'O"Alberti's treatise 1540, the third volume of Serlio's treatise, which focused Cin
was finally illustrated with woodcuts ana translated into Ital- architecture, had a similar effect. Without
ian. However, by this time, the text no longer having to go to Rome, it was now possible to see thefaIJlous
had *uc!l,lre,s wh!ch ,!p uIltil that point had only been knoW])
Serlio's illustrations wq:e produced from various pat- through words.
terns by unknown cutters. They Clearly testify to the limits of Speaking in pictures also opened new perspectives for
woodcut technology. But the oversized wo'odcuts in the trea- the architect. With the appearance of sketches (either in trea-
tises of Philibert de l'Grme, Palladio and Barbaro are exquis- tises or in the form of individual printed sheets), printed il-
ite and they prove that precisely those limits could be ex- lustrations became an instrument of structural planning. The
tended even further. Nevertheless, an ever increasing dome of St Peter's would look different, had it not been for
number of authors preferred to use copperplate engravings. Serlio's illustration of Bramante's design. This later influ-'
These allowed more exact contours as well as more subtly enced those who took over in this project. After the.death of
detailed modelling of the subject matter. In this case, the text Antonio da Sangallo, his followers publicized his model for
as set in movable tyPe illustration, while St Peter's in a series of engravings in order to polernicallyat-
the plates followed in a section of their own. Some early ex- tack the new design put forward by -Michelangelo. Without
amples of this new type of book are Serlio's Livre extraordi- having to concern himself with the problem of how to imp le-
naire de architecture (Lyons, 1551), the Livres d'architecture by ment the plans, the author of a treatise can show what can
Jacques Androuet du Cerceau (1559 and 1561) and Antonio actually be built and, in his opinion, what is desirable. Ser-
Labacco's Libro appartenente all'architettura (1552), published lio's legacy was a kind of "virtual architecture" with pioneer-
in Rome. Ten years later, Vignola brought out his Regola delli ing elements which we are only now beginning to appreciate.
cinque ordini d'architettura which consisted only of copper- For him, architecture was a function of the medium in which
plate engravings and contained two entire pages of text en- he published. This was far more than just a side-stream to
graved using the copperplate method. Here, the engraving the main current in architecture, as can be seen from the
technique proved its superiority. The illustrations 'were pro- ample of Andrea Palladio. In the latter's oeuvre, artistic cre-
duced with the precision of an engineer; an architect would ativity and journalistic self-portrayal complement each other
actually have been able to use them as a pattern by measur- , ideally; the tendency is for them to blend. As an architect as
ing the details with a pair of dividers. In later treatises both well as an author, Palladio is a genius in communication. It
techniques were used; sometimes separately, sometimes to- is no coincidence that he was the most successful and conse-
gether, as in Vincenzo Scainozzi's Idea della architettura uni- quential Italian architect of his time.
versale, published in 1615. Copperplate engraving remained How do treatises make pictures of architecture? A
the preferred medium from the 17th century until it was re- structure has three dimensions, but the page of a book, like
16 THOENES
the architect's drawing board, only has two. This problem is as
old as architecture itself; but it was not until the Renaissance
that it was treated as a theoretical problem. This was again
due to discussions about Vitruvius, which resulted in the gen-
eral comprehensibility being also made a criterion for archi-
tectural drawings.
Gothic building plans contain technical instructions
which can be realized only by a person who has been duly
trained professionally. They were intended for those work-
ing at the building site and were not for the general public.
Henaissance architects, however; trained themselves by sur-
.weying!ancl.cecording the buildings of Classical Antiquity. It
was their lIim to reproduce these edifices just as they ap-
peared and in line with the laws of optics. This predestined
their draWings for reproduction. Alberti formulated his theo-
ry of illustrations through his acquaintance with Vitruvius.
Only the orthogonal projection of an object, as limited to two
dimensions, is accurate in the sense that proportions remain
unaltered; its three-dimensional appearance results from a
combination of several such outlines. This did not exclude
the use of perspective views (Vitruvius: scaenographiae), but
,it did relegate them to the rank of I'ancillary" illustrations.
Authors like Serlio and Labacco 'attempted to meet the
c91ljJ.jdjng qeJllan(ls of (;orrectprop.<>rtions and realistic.ap-
pearance by mixing both tYls of illUstrations, while more
stringent theorists-such as Vignola, Palladio and Scamozzi'
restricted themselves to orthogonal projections, developing,
sophisticated procedures to illustrate the shape of spaces
and solid volumes in a suitable manner. Technically skHled
architects like Philibert de l'Orme and Martino Ferrabosco
experimented with methods of presentaticinal geometry
long before this had achieved the rank of a mathematical
science. Here, they were able to' benefit from having studied
theories of perspective. This had been a standard part of
architectural treatises since the time of Serlio, and under
such Baroque authors as Caramuel and Guarini it took
centre stage in such writings. For Andrea Pozzo it is more
important than architecture itself. Yet, freehand picturesque
views remained in use. In the 19th century, these culminat-
ed in architectural photography, which also became a part
of treatises (or their modern successors). Their history as
a medium of architectural representation has yet to be
written.
COLUMN ORDERS
Architectural treatises, from the Renaissance to the Post-
modern, deal with columns. For Albeiti, the column was "the
most beautiful ornament of a building" (in lata re aedificato
riapreT7l4rum certe omamentum in colunnis est). By this, he
did not mean in the sense of a decorative feature, but rather
as the central element in his architectural aesthetic. It was
therefore all the more disconcerting that different kinds of
columns appeared in the buildings of Classical Antiquity.
Vitruvius explained them in the context of styles of Greek
temples and their various systems of proportion; but Pliny
and after him, Isidor de Sevilla, spoke of Doric, Ionic and
Corinthian columns as independent objects, almost as if they
were products of nature (Pliny refers to them in his writings
on minerals!). It was in this manner that they were passed
down through the Middle Ages. Alberti, basing his ideas on
Vitruvius,Jormulated.a.systl:.m oLclassification derived from
the latter, but based it on his own descriptions and ordered
the columns of various monuments according to the various
styles oftheir capitals, entablatures and bases. Fromthis
point on, the empirical study of monuments as documented
in drawings by architects was accompanied by attempts on
the part of theorists to develop a uniform system of "orders."
In the end, the expression "order" was deployed as a concept
in its own right by Vignola. This was more than just a lin-
guisticpbenomenon. In the engravings for Regola delli
cinque ordini, the "orders" took on' a life of their own (just as
the columns had done in Pliny); they figure as autonomous
, Frightel).ingly .abstract an.d yet .
,theY'Contain the quintessence of Classical architecture. The
criterion is that they can be reproduced. Following this logic,
the illustrated printed and reproduced treatise itself be-
comes an "original." It does not give examples, but, instead,
furnishes the finished product.
In the guise of column orders, Renaissance architec-
ture became transportable, especially to countries north of
'.the Alps, where there were no "genuine" examples of Classi-
cal Antiquity. Architect Hans Blum from Zurich compared
the orders with grammar, which had to be studied and learnt
rin order to speak Latin. In Quinque columnarum exacta de
scriptio, published in 1550, he describes the "art of five
columns" as a "kind of new secret among the building initi-
ate." His system of proportion is intelligent but complicated
and his woodcuts, which are based on Serlio, show the or-
ders in a tracery of geometrical ancillary lines which are
reminiscent of Gothic building plans. Thus, in the succeed-
ing period, ManneristlBaroque ornamentation took pride of
place over the Vignola canon in German and Dutch books on
columns. Nevertheless, "the Vignola" remained the obligato-
ry norm and it continued to spread through all the countries
of Europe, and Peter the Great even had it translated into
Russian.
The appropriate use of columns became the shibboleth
of civilized progress. Like good table manners in everyday
life, proper application of the rules governing columns guar-
anteed the vanquishing of the barbaric in architecture. The
word."order," which had been used by Serlio and Vignola
purely for classificatory purposes, became charged with po-
litical and social undertones. "Order" in architecture repre-
sented "order" in society. The teachings about columns in
the 17th century became almost a state doctrine for French
theorists. Through increasingly detailed "paralleles" between
the authorities from Vitruvius to Vignola, they tried to estab-
lish absolute norms which existed completely free of any
random historical factors. Colbert, the omnipotent minister
of Louis XIV, commissioned Antoine Desgodets with a
survey of the Roman monuments. Simultaneously, he
arranged for. Claude Perrawl translation
of Vitruvius. He was motivated by a project to establish a
purely rationalistic version of ClaSsicism; just as Raphael
had intended with his plan for Rome: all of the ancient
buildings of Rome, including Cons tan tine's Arch, followed
the same "ragione" and this had been decreed once and for
all by Vitruvius. .
It was to be expected that the dogma of column orders
would meet with'opposition in m,odern Europe. Neverthe-
less, iUs surprising to even'Nberti praise those "nu-
merous" Classical from the rules,
being exquisitely executed with great diligence by masters in
capitulorum dis-
simulium <f1aemagna rora exquisita dili":, '
gentia\effecta sunt ab his, qui rebus novis inveniendis
studuerint"). He did notfeel obliged to use Vitruvius' canon
and actually preferred forms in his buildings which, in his
own words, "were not approved by the scholars" ("sed ea
doctis non probantur") .. Later, architects like Michelangelo
and Borromini conceived their own particular features with-
out justifying them theoretically; A bone of contention for the
theorists were the traditional system of five orders. This had
been well-established during the Renaissance and was still
bitterly defended iJy the Italian treatise writers as late as the
17th century. Vitruvius catalogued only the masculine (Doric)
and the feminine (Ionic) columns. When the Corinthian
sculptor Callimachus invented the acanthus motif, a third
type came into existence and this was dubbed "virgin." Vit-
ruvius derived the common names for the styles fr<w1 the
Greek tribes who had invented them. In Italy, a fourth, Etr-
uscan.type arose, and later the Composite capital came into
existence. Because of this, non-Italian architects felt chal-
lenged to develop their own, national orders. There was a
Spanish type (Sagredo, 1526), a French type (de l'Orme,
1567), a German type (Sturm, 1699), and a Britannic type
(Evelyn, 1781). Theorists during the Counter-reformation
(Villalpando, Possevino) contrasted these with Solomon's
Temple of Biblical fame, declaring its spiralling columns to
be the "Solomonic order." Caramuel recognized 11 orders,
including ,a Gothic. According to Guarini, an infinite number
INTRODUCTION 17
lacoino Barozzi da Vignola (1507-1573)
The frontispiece of Vignola's treatise on architecture shows. the .
author demonstrating his Regola wiU:> his dI-awing implements:
this was intended to replace the studies of Roman ruins that
adorned the frontispieces of older tracts.
In: Regola delli cinque ordini d'architettura, Rome, 1562
18 THOENES
of others could be invented. The orders had thusJost all their
authority. In 1702, the Enlightenment thinker Michele de
Fremin considered the orders to be the'most uninteresting
aspect of architecture. According to Isaac Ware in 1765, it
was possible to omit them completely and still create good
architecture.
ARCHITECTURAL THEORY
AND SOCIAL UTOPIA
More than any other art form, architecture is entwined in the "
political processes of society and linked t<;J the exercise of
power. and whetherthey think about it or not, ar-
chitects act politically. Even the purely formal decisions they
have to make are usually paraphrased in metaphors from the
social sphere: superior and support and load;
isolation and grouping; freedom and attachment. Architec-
tural styles, like political systems, are based on a consensus
which one can,affirm
1
question, defendordestroy.ln this '
way,areatises also reflect uponpoHiics and society: even if
these are not specifically mentioned., '
, ,,}.n !taly, the Renaissanceresulted in'the of
a new consensus.
i.e. G.othic times, or at'teast cqnfined it to'a back- ,
seat north of Alps .. In early treatises, this consensus was
justified through In hi!; writing, the architect
was a was able to consider all aspects
of the material in question. He was organized and in contro!'
related not only to his own profession but also to the
state,.to politics and to SOCiety. Filarete saw himself in this
role,.for example, and it was the one in which he
mended his services to his princely readers. With. the new
style of architecture he designed a social frame in which this
scheme could also develop. The impulse derives from Hu-
manist and Enlightenment thought, but this should not be
misinterpreted as a critique of the prevailing system of rule.
Architects want to build as magnificently as possible and
they take the side of those in power,for they are
the ones who give the architects the opportunity to realize
their projeCts. This is most apparent in the historical discus-
sions in Renaissance treatises. Monumental architecture was
always created where the ruler exercised the most authori-
tarian control over the riches of his realm, such as in the an-
cient Orient, in Egypt and in the Roman Empire. In spite of
everything, Alberti differentiates between tyrants who re-
press the will of the people, on the one hand, and good and
just rulers, on the other, who use their power "as though it
were granted them as an office by the general public" ("im-
perium quasi concessum magistratum"). In the first specific
social utopia elaborated in a treatise, namely Filarete's
"Sforzinda," the description is frighteningly direct. The
prince exercises absolute rule over his subjects whom he
treats like slaves in an army. With military discipline, they
are forced to' construct his capital city. Plato's teachings
about the state were the starting point for the studies of suc-
cessive theorists. They developed a broad spectrum of mod-
els for society, from those of the enlightened monarch who
met the wishes of the bourgeoisie through to the communes
of the French socialists in the 19th century. Order was the
basic principle of all of these theories. As the planning orgari
of political power, however the latter legitimated itself, it was
the ideal city and state for its
inhabitants and dictated how they should live. In Europe, re-
form movements appeared around 1900. These legitimated
the spontaneity of the individual and made it possible to test
"organic," non-hierarchical forms of co-existence. In the
United States, capitalism was sufficiently dynamic to make
hierarchical systems obsolete. In his writings, Frank Lloyd
Wright tried to sketch something like the architectural theory
of an"open socie,ty.'"
Architects 'are artists; their medium is called imagina-
tion. Yet whereas'the"painter simulates a new world, the ar-
chitect intervenes in fuereal one, thereby establishing new
realities. All arcbitectural designs contain a.kind of utopian
they renounce what is, in favour of what will or should
be. That said, the blueprint for the future must coexist with
. present reality; for at some point it will come up against the
boundaries, whether temporal or spatial. The planner must
try to expand these borders by extending a single element of
construction into something more: a complex of buildings, a
square, garden architecture, urban planning, social systems
and designs for the world at large.
Nevertheless, the more the horizon widens, the longer
it takes to enact the plans, In the end, the material creates
too much resistance and the plans become unrealistic. This
is the point at which the architect's fantasy makes the leap to
utopia (literally: "nowhere"}. At this point, the words come
quickly and the pen glides over the drawing paper. Perspec-
tive views, models and nowadays computer simulalions
eliminate any facts that might stand in the way. Thus utopian
thought and planning has become a fixed part of the litera-
ture of treatises. It was not, however, initially aimed at the
future, but at the past, for the society of old Europe was look-
ing for a new age in the guise of a primordial golden age,
which it hoped would return. That is why the most fantastic
utopian treatises deal with ancient structures - whether they
be from the time of the Roman Empire {Francesco di Gior-
gio} or Solomon's Temple {Villalpando}. Even the plans for
palaces designed in the utopian spirit during the twilight of
Absolutism pale against what Norber! Miller has termed Pi-
ranesi'sconcrete "archaeology of the dream." It was not until
the French RevOlution that such architectural and social
utopias as those of Boulee and Ledoux were freed of the
trammels of history. And it was 20tlj. century architects like
Le Corbusier, Sant'Elia and Bruno Taut who made futuristic
architecture the subject of their treatises.
THEORY AND ANTI-THEORY
The conviction that what is good and proper in architecture
could and should be theoretically substantiated was not
usual even in the period,9fthe greattreatises. Three ofthe
most important architects of the period did not write, all for
different reasons. Inretrospect, Brunelleschi seems to be a
kind of theorist ante litteram. He must have had a clear un-
derstanding of what we today call orders of columns; but he
saw no necessity to write about them and share his thoughts
with the public. Bramante was well-educated in literature
and without doubt familiar with the treatises of his time, but
nevertheless preferred to demonstrate his doctrine in build-
ings, Works like the Tempietto or;,the spiral staircase of the
Belvedere in the Vatican can easily be understood as a quasi
c'ommentary on Vitruvius. Of the architects of the 16th centu-
.ry, loquaCious was. Michelangelo. He clearly did not
,believe in the ability to verbali:te architectural content. Like
Bramante, it was through his works thatlj.e spoke and not as
a theorist, 1J,\l.t rather as an artist - a sculptor, to be exact. In
few words and with obvious reluctance, he only commented
on one design. In a letter, he closed with the statement:
"Those who are not masters of the hu'man figure and anato-
caimot understand." ("Chi non e stato 0 non e buon
maestro di figure e masimo di notomia non se ne puo inten-
,dere."),
. As we have seen, an animosity towards theory devel-
bped with the advance of printed illustrations. The author of
a treatise could now make a picture of what he meant, rather
than have to describe it. Many architects believed that archi-
tecture should not be learnt books alone. Even Al-
berti encouraged his readers not <?nly to read but also to
study the actual monuments one could learn just-
as much as "ex optimis professoribus" ("from the best pro-
INTRODUCTION 19
fessors"}.Serlio spared himself theoretical analyses by refer-
ring to pictures - un resto si vede" ("you can look at the
rest"). Labacco's opinion was that it is more fruitful to look
at examples and that it does not take as much time as read-
ing. For Vignola, reading is a burden (Ufastidio"); it should
be possible to understand his "regola" - not theory, but ap-
plication - by looking only at his plates. And even Palladio,
who was more wont to dwell on theoretical considerations,
promised his readers that he would avoid long-winded dis-
cussions.
This and similar quotations (it would be easy to make
a long list of them) came iari'Ksh(hcistile practi-
tioners to justify their criticisms against the literati who
merely used superficial words. But two hundred years later,
it was the literary scholars themselves who became the
spokesmen for leading critics of architectural theory. The re-
volt they expressed was that of sensibility against sense, of
life against the grey wastes of theory. We are familiar with
this from early piece, Von deutscher Baukunst (On
German ATchitectuTe):'''Principles are more dangerous to ge-
niuS than Jeis possible to "taste and artis-
tic impressions, to "feel" the secrets of architectural pro-
portions without them. Anyone whose "head is
fulr'ofthe of good taste"is' blind fo'the "
true' nature of architecture. This polemic was new imd intoxi-
cating, but the problem itself was certainly not new', for the
dichotomy between "principle" and "genius," between the
accepted aesthetic norm and creative individuality, touches
the very core of artistic theory. It has, of course, been the
subject of numerous discussions by the latter: many are the'
themes that have been 'addressed, and we cannot &0 into,
them here.
The clarity with which the F10rentine humanist and
Brunelleschi biographer, Antonio di Tuccio Manetti, formu-
lates this dilemma of all architectural theory is, therefore,
all the more remarkable: "If there were Ancient authors who
once taught architect,ure like Battista degli Alberti p.oes
today, they would only be able to deal with general princi-
ples - because the discoveries that a master makes are in
large part due to that which nature has given him to his
own efforts."